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If you use wordclouds to help extract meaning on a topic before beginning, (try pasting the Gettysburg address into one) then these 9 word cloud generators will be of use to you.

10 sites to help you organize and share resources.

Covers interactive reading, collaboration and problem-based learning with Diigo to help students become better international learners

We are a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. We envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions. Our technology enables the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students. Through this, we hope to give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few. We want to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in. Our Courses Classes offered on Coursera are designed to help you master the material. When you take one of our classes, you will watch lectures taught by world-class professors, learn at your own pace, test your knowledge, and reinforce concepts through interactive exercises. When you join one of our classes, you'll also join a global community of thousands of students learning alongside you.

These are complete mini-topics that are a week's worth of activities and lesson plans on each topic for ages 4-11. This pulls together lesson plans, interactive whiteboard resources, and printables and will be helpful for teachers in a tight or who need to quickly emphasize a topic where they know students have problems.

Superintentendent of Quitman County Schools, Allen Fort, nails it with this article about being a superintendent of a rural school in Georgia. When budgets get cut by the state, rural schools hurt the most because their falling tax revenue means they get cut on both ends. Many rural schools are struggling and it is a shame what is happening in many of them. He talks about one of the biggest problems in rural schools which is a problem for all of us in an increasing way: "A rural school in way too many students' lives does play the role of in loco parentis. In these buildings, the teachers, janitors, secretaries, lunch room workers, paraprofessionals, and bus drivers help them gain knowledge and understanding of the value of an education, acquire social skills and aspire to succeed, and in many, many cases they do." You should take the time to read this past Sunday's AJC to get an understanding of the state of education in Georgia for indeed many other states have similar issues. I thought the whole piece done by the AJC had many different viewpoints - it was a great read.

Artificial Intelligence and the "deep learning" movement are hitting it big time: big bucks and big influence on our future. Geoff Hinton is working for Google to help improve voice recognition, image tagging and more. Microsoft, IBM, Baidu (search enging in China) and others are getting into AI. This is part of education as AI and learning tools can be greatly impacted. Read and share this article if you're an education or technology futurist. Fascinating.

These 15 things will help you have a better day according to this article and research. If you're working on your routines, you'll want to read this article. Very interesting - I'm not sure about the research on the juice, though.

If you need help picking colors that go well together, I love color schemer for that. You can use the RGB colors even in Microsoft office or you can use the HEX for websites, etc. I teach my students about colors but even if you don't have time for that, you can at least teach them to generate a color palette.

You can now plan a Mystery Skype by registering on Skype. They've got information on how to do it and a system to help you pair with classes your age. I'm all in this!

There are some new apps in Chrome. I've installed the "pocket" app. These are basically apps that stand alone but sort of have chrome running in the background. Here's information on these handy tools to help you get more done. I do recommend Pocket (and have the app for my ipad as well) for offline reading. There are times I find a great article that I know I want to read, when I click "add to pocket" it puts it into pocket and then, when I sit down to read at night, there's the personal magazine assembled from the day's interests.

This website will sweep through your inbox and help you unsubscribe from the many mailing lists. Although Google does filters, I find it much nicer to just have this stuff swept out of my inbox and to unsubscribe. I'm on mailing lists I know I didn't sign up for so this is a blessing.

I'm beta testing Feedspot. The thing that most interests me about this option is that they are building in a true replacement for Google Alerts, something that Feedly doesn't have. RSS makes life much easier and helps you keep up with current news.

I'm also beta testing it. So far, I really like it, its simplicity, and Google Reader-ishness

Get your artists to create a Doodle 4 Google! Entries are due March 20. Start doodling. They also have a Teachers Pack and other things that you will need to help participate. Remember that only one application per student is allowed but you can have an unlimited number from your school. The 50 state winners will be flown to Mountain View, California. I went there for Google Certified Teacher training and it was awesome.

Digital Citizenship resources and thoughts to help you as you plan.

Mentoring is something that communities should have for their schools, businesses, and community. Here are 8 secrets of fostering mentoring that I wrote for Communities in Schools for Georgia that may prove helpful for some of you. You might want to share this before "national mentoring month" is over in the US.

"While I did enjoy David Burgess' Teach Like a Pirate, and the hangout that she shared with us, I'll admit… it made me kind of sad.  Not because of the content itself!  But because of the hard memories it brought up.  I used to teach creatively and encourage innovation in my classroom like that.  When I graduated college, I was chock full of ideas and adored hands-on learning.  But my communication skills was parents was very weak and my administrator was a frustrated man who decided his best way of control was micromanaging.  It's a bit of a long story, but the end result is I was knocked down to stop being creative; to just follow the curriculum and to push worksheets. " Wow. As I read this teacher from Dr. Lee Graham's class (they are in gamifi-ed with my students) I'm so touched by how the teacher helps us feel what is happening to TOO MANY TEACHERS. Too many teachers are being pushed down to teach the wrong way. Worksheet wonders and we wonder why no one loves to learn. This is sad and must change. I hope you'll comment.

Includes ten tips to help encourage children's imaginations

Interesting Research

This is a great simple Apple device app to help you reach an appropriate level of volume in your classroom. Watch the gauge rise and the background change as the volume increases. You can adjust the sensitivity for the situation/activity. The app is supported by ads, but these only appear as you start the app. Download the app at https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/too-noisy/id499844023 http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Classroom+Management+%26+Rewards